Star Wars Spinoff Casts Alden Ehrenreich as Young Han Solo

Following several months of speculation, a young Han Solo has been cast in one of the upcoming Star Wars anthology films. According to numerous sites, actor Alden Ehrenreich has nabbed the highly-coveted role to play the younger version of Harrison Ford’s rebel smuggler.

Ehrenreich is on a fast track to becoming one of the biggest names in Hollywood: he appeared in 2013′s Beautiful Creatures, the award-winning Blue Jasmine, and most recently the Coen brothers’ star-studded Hail, Caesar!. The American actor was absent from the earliest shortlist of potential hopefuls (which included Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Scott Eastwood, Logan Lerman, Emory Cohen, Blake Jenner, Jack Reynor, and Dave Franco), though some names from the list were kept under wraps. Ehrenreich didn’t pop up as a serious contender until a second shortlist was uncovered in mid-March, revealing the actor had been seen for screen tests alongside Reynor (Transformers: Age of Extinction) and Taron Egerton (The Kingsman).

Not much is known about the Han Solo-centric film, which is part of an spinoff anthology series of films beginning with December 16′s Rogue One. Like Rogue One, the untitled film will be set before Star Wars: A New Hope. Phil Lord and Chris Miller will direct, with a script by Star Wars writing veteran Lawrence Kasdan and his son, Jon.

The film isn’t due out until 2018, but it’s possible Ehrenreich will cameo as Han in Rogue One, meaning that we could get our first glimpse of the character as early as the end of 2016.